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5 unusual facts about Alice James


A Small Boy and Others

His family met William Thackeray and Charles Dickens on their American tours, and James even remembered Thackeray mock-scolding his sister Alice for her crinoline dress: "Crinoline? I was suspecting it! So young and so depraved!"

Alice James

The only daughter of Henry James, Sr. and sister of psychologist and philosopher William James and novelist Henry James, she is known mainly for the posthumously published diary that she kept in her final years.

She was struggling with the urge to kill her father, though this diary entry does not state the reason why she was patricidal.

As Alice was suffering from breast cancer, her brother, William James, wrote her a letter explaining how much he pitied her.

Society to Encourage Studies at Home

Among those involved as teachers were: Ellen Swallow Richards (science), Vida Dutton Scudder (English), Lucretia Crocker (science), Katherine Peabody Loring (history), Alice James (history), Lucy Elliot Keeler (history), Florence Trail (ancient history) and Elizabeth Thorndike Thornton (history).


Annie Haven Thwing

In the course of her life she corresponded with a number of notables including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Fanny Bowditch Dixwell Holmes, Alice James, Charles Franklin Thwing, Horace Howard Furness, and Edward Everett Hale.


see also

Alice James Books

Notable poets published by Alice James Books include Cynthia Cruz, Jane Kenyon, Donald Revell, Jean Valentine, David Kirby, Cole Swensen, Brian Turner, Robin Becker, Frank X. Gaspar, Mary Szybist, Forrest Hamer, Sarah Manguso, Kazim Ali, Ellen Doré Watson, Fanny Howe, B.H. Fairchild and Matthea Harvey.